LIST OF PANELS

The conditions under which policies are made have changed substantially in recent years. Issues have grown ever more complex and in many cases, from the risks of nuclear energy to the European debt crisis, even experts from the scientific community vehemently disagree about feasible policy options. So it is fair to say that governments often do not understand the problems they have to deal with and they do not know if the policies they choose will actually solve the problems at hand. Furthermore, depending on the policy issue at stake, problem production and (national) problem solving have become disconnected due to Europeanization and globalization. Thus, governments have to act under conditions of ambiguity. What is more, they have little time for their decisions as the economy and society change fast, the media are looking out for new stories and voters are becoming increasingly volatile. Both ambiguity and time constraints make models that see policy-making as an exercise in rational problem-solving highly unconvincing. Conversely, Kingdon’s (1995) Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), developed further by Zahariadis (2014), takes ambiguity and policy-makers' time constraints as starting points of the policy process. 

Three main areas will be at the focus of this panel/section:

(a) Theoretical relevance: Are MSF key concepts theoretically well developed? Can we derive and empirically confirm MSF hypotheses?  Which theoretical revisions (if any) are necessary in order to allow the framework to work in comparative or international contexts? Are any theoretical adaptations needed in order to explain the policy process in policy areas that are affected by globalization? Does the MSF "travel" well in developing countries?

(b) Empirical application: Can the framework's hypotheses be falsified? How can the key concepts be operationalized?

(c) Comparison with other theoretical frameworks: How does the MSF fare in comparison with other theoretical frameworks, like the Advocacy Coalition Framework, the Punctuated Equilibrium lens, Institutional Rational Choice, etc.? Does it fall short when it comes to areas where it is expected to do well?

While ambiguity is a fact of political life, we still don't know much about how it affects the policy process. For example, ambiguity is used to alleviate political conflict and promote consensus, to generate agreement on contentious issues, to hide and confuse key elements of frames or decisions. Nevertheless, despite all the negative connotations its strategic use has proliferated in public policy. Policy makers often manipulate interpretations of events to generate support or opposition, to suppress or direct attention to important issues, or perhaps to discredit opponents or institutions with “alternative facts.” The panel explores the applicability of a framework of the policy process, the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), which is the only policy framework to explicitly argue it is suitable under conditions of ambiguity, in various issues across national and international contexts. How well does the MSF answer the following questions and what theoretical adaptations are needed (if any) to strengthen its explanatory power?

What are the mechanisms by which ambiguous messages become public policy, how do actors accomplish policy change (or not), and what are the implications for democratic governance? Does the MSF apply equally well to developed and developing countries without conceptual stretching? Are there limitations to its explanatory power in bureaucratic, authoritarian or democratic environments? Given that it remains largely a framework built to explain the policy process of national governments, how does globalization or transnationalism affect the MSF's structural architecture?

We invite scholars from any discipline to propose papers to this panel that adopt the MSF either as a standalone theoretical orientation or in comparison to other frameworks of the policy process. While theoretical papers are welcome, empirical applications are encouraged in any issue of domestic or international policy. We remain agnostic to methodology and qualitative, quantitative and experimental methodologies are welcome.